Story Cover Art (Collaborations)

Some people were talking about how to implement a system where an Artist would make art representative of a scene from an Author's fanfiction, or a title illustration, or a piece linked in some other way. I think this is a good idea, and Artists will benefit from it.

There were a couple of ideas tossed around, but today I found an iteration I think I like, and wanted to throw it out there for discussion:

Author and Artist work together to create one Story and one Artpiece. The Story and Art are Graded and Curated as usual to determine whether or not each user captures a Pokemon-- but even if one partner in the collaboration fails to capture, both partners get a bonus (in Poke-$) if their pieces are deemed to fit together snugly. At least one part of the collaboration has to capture their Pokemon for either of the users to get their extra money.

An example:

Author writes a Magikarp story, and Artist draws a Magikarp. Assuming they each beat Easiest for their section (Stories and Art, respectively), they each receive a Magikarp (as they would had they submitted the pieces independently).

If the Story and Art are tied together thematically (as in, a Magikarp with a hat in the Story, and clearly the same character drawn in the Art), both collaborators would earn an additional 2k (1/2 of the average CC for the rank, "Easiest," or [4,000/2]).

^This is how it should work.

An example for failures:

Author writes a story about a Bulbasaur. Artist draws a Bulbasaur. Author beats the target CC for Bulbasaur, but the Artist does not meet the quality for it. Bulbasaur is caught by the Author, and is not caught by the Artist. Buuuuut, BOTH of them get 12.5k (1/2 of the average CC for the rank, "Hard"), if the Art depicted the Story well (or vice-versa).

An example for Total Failures:

Author writes a story about Porygon-z. Artist draws a Porygon-Z. Neither reaches the required Character Count or Art Points.
Neither collaborator captures the Pokemon, and neither of them gets paid 35k.

Also, any time the art and story don't grok, neither member of the collaboration earns any bonus cash. That encourages Author and Artist to work together more closely.



I'm pretty sure somebody will be able to find a prettier way to put this. I'm not much good at rules phrasing and formatting. But I hope this got my point across!

 

This seem like a good event idea, but that could be just me

 

It should be noted that the art and story will need be graded/curated separately from each other since graders and curators kinda don't overlap, and there hasn't been a ton of activity in either section lately, so both artist and author might be kept waiting a really long time.

This is a cool concept, and I'd actually love to see it implemented, but there would maybe need to be some new guidelines added for the curators as to how they could judge the art differently at least.

 

Yea I agree with Syn that it would probably work best as an event, and then the prizes could honestly be upgraded if people wanted (to like a Pokemon a rank below whatever you wrote/drew for for each person)

Also, I feel like both the art and the story should pass. I don't really think it makes sense for only one of them to pass cuz then you can just submit one good piece and one shit piece lol

Great idea though Truly!

 

You say "1/2 of average CC per rank", but that's not the average, that's the MCR (minimum character requirement). Which, okay cool, but did you mean the average leading up to CC? Like for simple mon (MCR = 4k characters) the average leading up to that would be 2k characters, so only $1k would be paid. (This is just for clarification).

Also, I like what syn said (if you didn't get that from me "liking" what he said lul)

 

No, I mean--

Easiest is a range from 3k to 5k CC. In the middle is 4k-- what I referred to as "Average." Like, the Average CC for Easiest (or even, [3k+5k]/2 = 4k, literally the Median). So you take the Average CC for the rank, and split it in half, and give one half to each Collaborator. For easiest, Average is 4k, so each Collaborator gets 2k.

I considered trying to squeeze out rules for different ranks, but to make it less confusing, decided to base it off the Story Collaboration rules-- two people catching two pokemon (one a piece) of the same rank.

As written above (and it's just a sketch! But I think it's good so I'll defend it a bit), one still has to pass in their own category (Story or Art) to get the Pokemon. The bonus cash is 1/2 of what the pokemon is worth (I based it off of Story/Art Deals-- You'd pay the Average CC in TMs). So it's not a huuuge thing. Plus, at least one person has to Capture the pokemon, which means people can't just spam crappy crap in teams to get money. Also, and most importantly-- if one person does terribly, there's a good chance it's not related enough to the source material (Either a picture based on a story, or a story based on an image), to get the Prize Money. They still have to be clearly related and really belong together to work. (In my mind, this would remove the Creativity section from the Curation-- at least partially-- and replace it with Accuracy and Relevance to the story.)

The idea behind making only one person catch their target Pokemon is so people who do well but fall just a little bit short aren't punished harshly for it. They still don't get their pokemon, but they get 1/2 the pokemon's worth for collaborating.


Also, when you guys say "Event," you mean like the Park Mini Runs that eventually became canon as Beginner Runs? A sort of "testing this thing out" and then if it's popular/good keeping it and tweaking it, and if it's ignored/awful scrapping it? Sounds good to me!

 

I wanted to refocus attention here on this idea so we can hopefully launch it at some point.

Let me start with my original vision.


Harry's Proposal

As I see it, if we can create a system in which artists actively work with writers to create cover art for the stories, then this could be a continuous collaborative option for our members. Additionally, it can serve as a source of revenue for artists.

In this proposal, it doesn't matter if the story passes or not. The artist is rewarded primarily on how their work turns out, not on the author's talents. This doesn't mean the author is eliminated entirely, however. I think the author and artist should collaborate so that the author receives a cover art that would be fitting for his or her story.

As I see it, either the author puts out a request for an artist or an artist contacts an author to do art for their story. The two would then discuss what would work and the artist would then create the piece. Afterwards, the piece would be submitted to the Curators for payment.

The Curator would award the artist an amount the varies depending on quality. Amounts can vary from $4,000 to $20,000 depending on how amazing the artwork is. For example, the cover art on my story would be worth $20,000 (or more possibly). The author will receive $2,000 for collaborating with the artist.

This is a simpler system than what was outlined, but I think simpler systems are easier to understand.

 

Simplicity seems reasonable, as long as the reward fits well with what they could be getting if they submitted the art by itself for a Pokémon. According to your proposal, this seems to be the case for art that would pass for lower rank Pokémon, perhaps increase the maximum for very high quality art so it would match the approximate trade value of a Pokémon earned from art of that high quality. Other than that, the proposal seems good (obviously with the added category of criteria that it fits well with the story).

Although I think it's worth mentioning that the art's payment should not be based solely on story quality but also art quality, being curved higher if the story is very good and/or long/hard for the artist to read and match well.

As I am not an expert on either section, feel free to tell me that I'm crazy with everything in this post and suggest something better. Or not, if I'm actually saying something that makes sense relating to a section that isn't battles or contests.

 

I think you have a good suggestion, Ash. I've expanded a bit more on my proposal in detail below:

You're paid this much based on the category of your artwork:

Easiest - 1k
Simple - 2k
Medium - 5k
Hard - 10k
Complex - 15k
Demanding - 20k
Merciless - 25k
Stupefying - $30k

If your artwork is for a story of Hard difficulty or higher, your pay is automatically upgraded to the next category.

For example, if a Curator marks your piece as Demanding, you'd normally get 20k. If the story you drew it for was a Complex story, you'd get 25k.

(In cases where both the art and story are both Stupefying, the artist gets 40k).

 

Can the artist also attempt a capture, then? Starly, a Simple, goes for 7k in the Mart. Here, you wouldn't be able to make that much money unless you had a Hard-Quality cover.

To show it another way, you can trade a Simple pokemon in an Art Deal, and expect 5,000 on the lowest of the low end. But in the post above, that's what you earn for a Medium cover. If I'm doing Medium-quality work, why shouldn't it be art deals that pay off at at least, no less than twice that? (Or up to four times as much?)

If the cover art can also be used to capture, I'd say these payouts are fine. But if not... considering you could make more money with less work by doing art deals.

Pay for covers, as above, is much lower than pay for anything else.

 

As I see it, if an artist wants Pokemon instead of money, the artist simply submits the cover art normally as per current Art Gallery rules.

 

Personally, I feel like the problem is that (unless you're allowing them to do both, then ignore me), you're therefore encouraging 99% of them to be submitted as normal art and disregard the objective of being story covers. Basically, if they can't get a Pokémon as part of the cover art deal, then make the rewards of similar levels to what they could otherwise get (and that was my point in my last post), otherwise they won't do it.

 

So you want me to raise the pay levels?

 

I know I do. It's really not worth doing unless you can also catch a pokemon (and one you want or can trade off, otherwise, why bother?). And, to be fair, some covers won't be good for catching pokemon... or, at least not in my mind.

That actually brings up a good point. Do covers have to feature a pokemon? idk if there are lots of stories where pokemon take an absolute backseat role (being essentially non-characters, background characters), but I do know there are lots of fanfictions that are more about the trainer than the trainer's pokemon (though maybe less-so in URPG). Does the main focus in a cover have to be the pokemon, like it does in an Art Capture? Does a pokemon actually have to be there at all?


If you can't catch a pokemon with it, then it's not worth doing at those prices. Even if you can... it's iffy-- and really not much different from doing a normal art capture with a little bonus on top. If your scale was more like,

Easiest - 3k
Simple - 5k
Medium - 10k
Hard - 20k
Complex - 30k
Demanding - 40k
Merciless - 55k
Stupefying - $65k

And art submitted as covers could not also catch pokemon, that would be more in line with art trades (in fact, I used the low end of the CC for each rank. In an art trade or story trade, you'd usually get more).

Or, if you still want to keep the bit where a Hard or harder story bumps your art up to the next pay-rank, then shift them all down one--- Easiest being 1 or 2k, Simple being 3k, Medium being 5k, and so on.

 

I'm okay with increasing pay. We can go with a scale similar to yours:

Easiest - 3k
Simple - 5k
Medium - 10k
Hard - 20k
Complex - 30k
Demanding - 40k
Merciless - 55k
Stupefying - 70k
Stupefying+ - 85k


So the idea is that an artist can either get the money or capture the Pokemon, not both. And yes, in this case, the story cover does not have to be about a Pokemon.

If the artist draws a cover for story of Hard difficulty or higher, the artist pay (or Pokemon capture) is upgraded a level.

 

I'm going to go ahead and chime in on this.

The story and art should definitely be graded separately. A grader isn't qualified to curate art, and a curator isn't qualified to grade stories, assuming they don't have both licenses. (Some people have both licenses, and that's cool, but we'll go with the assumption that they don't. If they do, however, the same person can do both if they want, I don't care.) Both would have to be submitted separately anyways, but the art can be displayed in the story, if that makes sense.

For the pay, I think it should either be Pokemon or money for the artist, not both. The writer doesn't really need any sort of monetary payment as they just (hopefully!) acquired a Pokemon, and if the writer did the story for a story deal, they're basically getting the equivalent of money anyways in the form of a TM case; if it wasn't a story deal, they're going to get money from basics, assuming the Pokemon evolves. But for the artist, they either submit it for money or they submit it for the Pokemon in the art, their choice. I'm very strongly against them getting both money and Pokemon.

For monetary payouts, I honestly think it should be the midrange of the CC required for the stories (since art uses a point system where you have to get a specific point value or higher to catch the Pokemon anyways), similar to how TM cases are done for story deals. Someone does an Easiest and they want money? 4k. Simple enough and doesn't require a whole new money chart when we already have an unspoken one. If the art fails and it was submitted for money, give them half of whatever the payment is if they had passed; if they failed Easiest, they'd get $2000 instead of $4000. We could give bonuses if y'all really wanted to do that; for example if the curator gives an Easiest a 35/25, they could get $100 for every point over the minimum required point value they got. In the example, since 25 is the minimum requirement for an Easiest art piece and 35 is 10 above that, they'd get an extra $1000. It'd force the curators to not just say "25/25, piece passes" like most of them seem to do. Feel free to change the numbers on the bonus if y'all decide to do that, but I just said $100 since $500 gave $5000 for an extra 10 points, and that seemed a bit overkill since it seems like the idea is to encourage people to submit art while also helping a writer have art for their piece, not let's give artists a bunch of money for doing art.

Below are the midrange payments, so that y'all can have that:

Easiest - $4000
Simple - $7500
Medium - $15000
Hard - $25000
Complex - $35000
Demanding - $47500
Merciless - $60000
Stupefying - $70000

(I dunno, looking at it, some of these sound ridiculously high now that I've done the math, but thinking about it, for the higher ranked ones, a fuckton of effort is going into those to begin with, so they deserve a higher pay value. I dunno. Someone can shoot that down if they want, I won't be mad. The idea is to give people incentive to do this in the first place for writers, but at the same time, if the artist isn't submitting for the Pokemon, they should get something of equivalent value. Also the most recent price list I posted is super similar to this, except I'm using midrange for it, but for story deals, the midrange of the MCR is used for the TM case price, and I feel like the same would apply for an art deal since the numbers aren't a range.)